Video: Brook Macdonald on What it Takes to Race DH World Cups in 'The Art of Passion'

Here's a legend who has had bad days in the office but who has pushed through to overcome them and achieve outstanding results. In this episode of The Art of Passion, Brook Macdonald talks about his internal drive during the previous World Cup season.

Photo credit: Boris Beyer

Special thank you to Brook for sharing his passion with us, and passing on some pearls wisdom to the next generation.---For more inspirational mini-doc's check out our YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/c/theartofpassionnz

I love this sport as you don't seem to get any big egos at the professional end unlike some other sports. The only one I can remember was Palmer, but he was an exception and at the time as I think the sport needed it.

Has something special mtb pro riders grounded to the earth and accessible.. but if you go and live around the pits you know and smell big egos around... and it doesn´t surprises me... our society it´s still build around ego.

@andydhteam: what is your problem, bro? People say worse about my countryman Aaron Gwin every year but I don’t throw a tampon between my legs and tell people to sit down and shit up. Seems like you’re butt hurt because someone stated a fact about your fellow countryman. Did I use harsh words or personally dig at him? I can think he’s overrated, because he is, and can state that in a comment without being a douche, which I did. Grow up, bro. You gotta be like 16 or something. Worse part is my name is Andy and you’re the andydhteam. My name is tainted with immaturity and snowflakeness.

A dig is a criticism unfounded by relevant facts or observations. I made a fair assessment base on facts: Bulldog has hype surrounding him every year he doesn’t live up to and being a genuine human being doesn’t make him a better racer than anyone else. Go color in the corner with your crayons and let the adults speak, okay?

@CaliCol: criticism, color hmmm nice words buddy,looks like im not the one who should go in the corner and colour in it seems like thats all you did in school. maybe you should go take up english school. have a nice day nova.

@andydhteam: you’re a dumb ass. In America we spell it “color.” Where you’re from its “colour,” just like where I’m from we spell it “tire” instead of “tyre.” If you really want to did into it, what we call “vacation” here in the states you call “holiday.” The funny thing is my when I tried to be respective and explain the difference between our spellings of words my iPhone auto corrected “colour” to “color.” f*cking f*ggot.

Interesting point but I don’t think I agree with you- there’s lots of evidence in modern sports psychology that a “killer instinct” can be successfully learned through developing an ability to increase attentional focus, learning to be fully present and learning to manage pre-competition anxiety. Unless your description of “killer instinct” has more to do with outright intensity? In which case there are many examples of failed (short) careers of people in sport who tried to place intensity ahead of skill mastery or technique.

I am just curious to if you have heard of the book “the rock warriors way”? While it’s about rock climbing, the book is based on applying martial arts techniques based on the experience of samurai (I think? Maybe it’s another type?) warriors who regularly faced death and applies those approaches to sport (mostly big wall climbing). Might be interesting to check out as there’s tons of examples of how that could apply to racing, which i think is a bit more accurate than thinking racers just go out there and giv’er or that these athletes haven’t worked exceptionally hard for years to get to where they are at, mentally.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but, this is a dopey opinion....based in little fact. Luca is 21, Brook is 28. Luca has been on the cusp of winning 3 world cups in only his 2nd year as an elite, but his "Killer Instinct" (meaning, win at all costs) forced him into a crash 2 times and a flat on that 3rd time (meaning fastest splits and fastest qualifier). Luca is not happy when he f*cks up, that is killer instinct, he wants to win more than any rider ive worked with in my 30 years of working with athletes. As for Brook, I think he has the killer instinct as well, but he did lose a couple years while riding for his previous team.